if you never say a word
by TexasWatermelon
Summary: New York is nothing like she imagined it would be in all of her fantasies as a child. It's way better. Sequel to "don't you know people write songs (about girls like you)".


**Title: **if you never say a word  
**Author: **texaswatermelon  
**Fandom: **Glee  
**Pairing: **Rachel Berry/Cassandra July  
**Rating: **M  
**Summary: **New York is nothing like she imagined it would be in all of her fantasies as a child. It's way better. Sequel to _don't you know people write songs (about girls like you)_.  
**Disclaimer: **Glee is property of Ryan Murphy and Fox. No infringement intended.  
**Word Count: **18,511  
**Warnings:** Sex, swearing, mild bondage and spanking.  
**A/N: **So, this is finally finished. Firstly, I'd really like to thank everyone who gave their reviews and support for the first Julyberry story. You guys are really amazing. I'd also like to thank Vicki for her general support and motivation when it came to writing this one. I have a weird mix of canon and non-canon stuff going on here, and I may reference a few things from season four, but nothing too spoilery I don't think, and nothing too confusing if you're not watching the show. This story is unbeta'd, so all mistakes are my own as per usual. Please enjoy.

xx

It's completely accidental when Kurt finds out.

School has been over for about three weeks now, and Rachel has never been happier for summer. Her finals were pretty brutal (Cassie's was one of the hardest of course, that bitch), but she managed to get through it all with pretty decent marks. Cassie offers a semi-advanced dance class that's unaffiliated with NYADA over the summer, but it doesn't start until July, so they both have some time to just rest.

So they're at Starbucks, naturally, and Rachel is scrolling through her Facebook feed on her iPhone to pass the time while Cassie gets their coffee. She's in the middle of liking Puck's status—_killer gig last nite with Mercedes Jones, thx hot mamma!_—when Cassie sets a soy latte in front of her. Rachel stretches her neck up without even thinking about it and Cassie leans down to meet her halfway (three-quarters of the way, really, since Rachel is so short). Their lips meet, and it's seriously the smallest peck ever, but—

"Holy sweet Liza Minnelli!"

Rachel doesn't even have to turn her head to know whom that voice belongs to, but she does anyway, and fast enough to make herself dizzy.

"Kurt!" she squeaks, and duh, of course he's here. This is the Starbucks right beside his internship. He looks like he might be ready to faint.

"Schwimmer, why is the baby homosexual staring at us like that?" Cassie asks, directing a deadly glare at Kurt.

"Cassie," Rachel says nervously, "this is my best friend and roommate, Kurt Hummel." Cassie shoots her a look, and Rachel doesn't even want to know the murderous thoughts that must be running through her mind right now. "Kurt, this is—"

"Cassandra July!" Kurt exclaims, practically running over to shake Cassie's hand. "What an honor to finally meet you! Rachel's told me all about what an amazing dance teacher you are."

"I know for a fact that's a lie," Cassie says, and Rachel knows her well enough by now to know that her tone is wry, but Cassie's wry tone and her _I'm going to kick you in the balls any minute now_ tone are very similar to the untrained ear, and Kurt's face gets very pale. Rachel rolls her eyes.

"Do you have time to join us, Kurt?" she asks.

"I have a few minutes," Kurt says. His eyes dart towards Cassie, who has sat down across from Rachel by now. "If you don't mind, Miss July…"

Cassie's eye roll is enough to give Santana Lopez a run for her money. "Be my guest, Sparkles."

Kurt rushes off to get his coffee and Rachel glares at Cassie.

"Please try to be nice," she says, and Cassie raises an eyebrow.

"I'm not _nice_, Schwimmer, as I'm sure you know by now."

"And I'm sure _you_ know by now that you're not fooling anyone with that act," Rachel says with a smirk. Cassie purses her lips sourly and Rachel sobers up. "Are you um, okay with this though? With people knowing about us, I mean."

"Well, you're technically not my student anymore," Cassie says slowly. "I'd prefer if you could restrain yourself from singing about it in the streets with your very loud mouth, but I don't see why your best friend can't know." Rachel ignores the jab and grins widely, and Cassie smirks in return. "We're never double-dating with Sparkles and his meat of the week, though."

Rachel's pretty sure they can revisit that decree at a later date.

xx

Kurt takes Rachel shopping the Sunday before Cassie's class starts.

"You've been in New York for a year now Rachel, and you've already changed so much. I think it's time to make the outside match the inside, don't you?"

Rachel doesn't really think she's changed that much, but even if she has she's not sure why that constitutes a wardrobe overhaul. Kurt is adamant though, so she goes along with it to shut him up. She can't help but remember what happened the last time Kurt offered to make her over. But they're friends now, best friends, and no longer fighting over the same guy, so she figures he wouldn't do that to her again.

Surprisingly, they stay away from the huge department stores that Rachel thought he would drag her into. Instead, they go to little shops and boutiques all over the place, darting in and out of them so quickly that Rachel wonders if Kurt didn't scope them all out the day before. He's a fantastic bargain shopper, and she really doesn't spend that much considering everything she gets.

When they finally get back home he makes her model everything for him all over again. She has to admit that he has impeccable taste. He's managed to update her look without making her feel like an entirely different person.

"Rachel, you look fabulous. Sometimes I surprise even myself by how good I am at this," he says while she inspects her new hair and makeup in the mirror.

"Do you think Cassie will like it?" She asks nervously. Kurt looks affronted that she would even dare question his taste.

"Honey, your girlfriend may be crazy, but she's not blind. Not that I ever want to think about this, but if she's not trying to rip your clothes off within the first five minutes of seeing you, it's time to find someone new."

Rachel blushes and whirls around to smack him on the arm. But he's right; she does look hot.

xx

They're ten minutes into the first dance class when Rachel finally bursts through the door. Cassandra knows that it's her without even looking because Rachel starts spouting off apologies about mixing up the subway routes (obvious bullshit) before she even gets halfway into the room. Cassandra turns around with the intention of ripping Rachel a new one, because girlfriend or not, _no one_ interrupts her class by coming in late, especially not on the first day, and Rachel is well aware of that.

She pretty much chokes on whatever she was going to say the minute she catches sight of Rachel looking, well… _fuck_.

Rachel is wearing sheer black tights with a pair of tight black shorts over top that hardly even cover her ass, along with a cutoff grey sweatshirt that shows one light pink bra strap. Her hair is wavy, her eyeliner heavy and dark. There's a glint in her brown eyes, a self-confident sparkle. She knows she looks good. Cassandra is aware that her wide-eyed expression is only confirming that fact, but she can't stop staring.

"Sorry I'm late," Rachel says, and the heels she's wearing pretty much put her at eye level with Cassandra. She doesn't even try that bullshit about the subway lines again. "Where do you want me?" She says it so innocently, but the smirk on her lips is incredibly suggestive. Cassandra narrows her eyes, licks her lips.

"Go warm up on the barre, Schwimmer. We'll… discuss your tardiness after class," she says lowly.

Rachel grins and struts over to do her stretches, and _Jesus_ her ass in those shorts is distracting. Cassandra shakes her head and turns her attention back to the rest of her class. She snaps at one of the guys, someone she's had in class before, to get his shit together and stop stepping on his partner's toes.

It's a pretty agonizing two hours. Rachel actually sobers up and gets serious about doing the exercises in class, which helps a little, but Cassandra keeps staring at her and not paying enough attention to her other students, and it's just a little bit of an embarrassment.

When the last person finally gets the hell out of her studio, she locks the door behind them and turns around to find Rachel leaning against the far wall, and it's that awful mix of innocent and seductive that she somehow manages to pull off so flawlessly. Cassandra covers the length of the studio in approximately four strides and presses right into Rachel's body, kisses her with the slow hunger that's been building for the last two hours.

"You," she mumbles, and then presses a kiss to Rachel's jawbone, "are the biggest," sucks on her neck, "pain in my ass sometimes." She finishes with a sharp nip to Rachel's exposed collarbone and Rachel makes a tiny whimpering noise in the back of her throat.

"Kurt gave me a makeover yesterday," Rachel says while Cassandra's hand trails up one of her legs.

"So that's what you and Sparkles were up to all day," Cassandra says with a smirk. She grazes a hand over one of Rachel's breasts. Rachel inhales sharply.

"You… you like it, don't you?" she asks quietly, and the note of insecurity in her voice evaporates that lusty haze that's taken over Cassandra's brain. She remembers very suddenly that Rachel is still just a girl, one who's not as confident as she likes to pretend she is sometimes, and who often needs just a little bit of validation.

Cassandra's eyes snap up to meet Rachel's, and they're no longer sparkling with that earlier certainty. They're wide, vulnerable. Cassandra hates that this girl puts so much trust into her sometimes, because she's never sure that she's not going to completely crush Rachel's heart under her heel on accident.

"I've wanted to throw you on the ground and take you from the moment you walked through those doors," she says seriously, and Rachel's blush is immediate. Cassandra pauses and takes a steadying breath, cups Rachel's warm cheek in her cold hand. Rachel turns into it—she always does, even though Cassandra's hands are always freezing—and Cassandra feels her breath catch a little bit. "You're beautiful, Rachel. You were beautiful when I saw you on Saturday, and you're beautiful now. You didn't do this for me, did you?"

Rachel shakes her head, and there are tears in her eyes. There are tears in Rachel's eyes at least once a day though, and Cassandra has learned to read the different kinds of crying that Rachel does pretty well by now. These are tears of relief, happiness, love. Tears that let her know she actually said the right thing.

"I'm not the same girl I was when I came to New York last year. This was something for me," Rachel says, and Cassandra smiles, because she remembers when she got her own "New York, New Me" makeover, and yeah, it was pretty much just like that.

"Good," she says, and kisses Rachel. She pulls back suddenly and narrows her eyes. "You didn't throw out all of your old clothes, did you? Because I can think of a few occasions that would call for you wearing that one plaid skirt you have."

Rachel laughs and pushes gently at Cassandra's shoulder, and Cassandra can't help but grin.

xx

Rachel goes back to Lima for a week to visit her parents and celebrate her daddy's birthday.

"You could come with," she offers, sounding like she can't decide if she wants Cassandra to accept or decline.

"I don't really do well with parents, Schwimmer," Cassandra says, handing Rachel a wedge of the orange she's eating, "and that's when I'm _not_ dating one of my students who is fifteen years younger than me."

Rachel makes a face of grudging agreement and chomps down on the orange piece.

"Maybe we should wait a little," she mumbles through her food, and Cassandra tries to ignore how annoyingly cute she looks.

Cassandra is loath to admit this, but Rachel being out of town puts her in a fucking terrible mood. Class isn't the same without her, and she's a complete raging bitch to the rest of her students for pretty much the entire week. Some of them are NYADA students like Rachel, just trying to get ahead, and are used to this by now. Most, though, are people who weren't good enough to get into NYADA, but still want to pay an exorbitant amount of money to be taught by one of its professors.

By Thursday, she's pretty much reached her breaking point. One of the non-NYADA girls (Cassandra has never liked the timid and simpering expression she constantly wears, like a shivering Chihuahua) accidentally stumbles and bumps into her during a routine, and Cassandra just… flips.

"Did you somehow miraculously contract polio as a child?" she yells, and Chihuahua freezes and looks at her with these wide, terrified eyes. "Seriously, you dance like a crippled giraffe, which isn't cute or attractive in any way, in case you were wondering." The girl promptly bursts into tears and runs to the corner of the room to collapse. Her friend chases after her. The rest of the class stares, unsure about what they should be doing. "What are you all looking at? Did I say you could stop? Keep dancing!"

Everything resumes, and Cassandra continues her weaving in and out, barking criticisms and instructions. She passes too close to Chihuahua and catches part of what her friend is saying to comfort her.

"Don't listen to her, Katie. She's just a jealous old hag because she can't get anyone to cast her."

Cassandra is reminded immediately of Rachel, of the ugly truths she'd spit at Cassandra after the _Oops_ routine. How this is what everyone whispers behind her back, and how it will be the only thing anyone ever remembers when they think of her—probably even Rachel.

She goes straight to the liquor cabinet as soon as she gets home, decides on vodka and mixes it with a tablespoon of orange juice, just because. By seven, she's swallowed enough of her dignity to call Rachel.

"Do you still think I'm a washed up wannabe?" she asks as soon as Rachel answers the phone.

"_What?_" Rachel asks, and Cassandra can hear people laughing in the background, probably her fathers.

"Nothing," she sighs. "Just needed to… Have fun with your dads."

She hangs up and takes a swig straight out of the bottle, puts her phone on silent, drinks some more.

xx

Cassandra wakes up to a hand stroking her cheek, and blinks blearily until Rachel's eyes come into focus. She has no idea what time it is, what _day_ it is even, or how the hell she ended up in bed. She tries to croak out Rachel's nickname, but her throat is so dry and her lips feel like they're glued together. Rachel shushes her softly and brings a glass of water to her lips, helps lift her head up so she can drink it. Once she's gulped down the whole thing, she lets her head fall back to the pillow.

"Schwimmer," she tries again, and Rachel smiles down at her softly and brushes the hair back from Cassandra's forehead. "You're back."

"It sounded like you needed me," Rachel says simply.

"What about your dads?" Cassandra asks.

"I told them about you," Rachel replies, and Cassandra grimaces as she feels the headache that's slowly been making itself evident to her burst into life. "Don't worry. They had a lot of questions and it's probably going to take them some time to get used to the idea, but they really just want me to be happy."

"And that's… you're happy? With me?"

Rachel leans down to kiss her softly.

"Yes," she says firmly against Cassandra's lips. Cassandra sighs and her body releases a tension she didn't even know was there. She allows herself to be lulled by the motion of Rachel's thumb rubbing back and forth across her cheek. "Do you want to talk about whatever it is that happened?"

"I was… harsh to one of the girls in class," Cassandra says after a few moments of silence, "and I overheard her friend whispering to her about how I was 'a jealous old hag,' I think is how she put it."

"They're idiots," Rachel says immediately, and Cassandra is taken aback by the venom in her voice. "If they can't handle a little bit of criticism, then they don't deserve to be here. You taught me that, and you were right. You are amazing at everything you do, Cassie. The way you dance, I—I'll never be able to move like that. But you push me to keep trying, to never settle. I would never have gotten that part in the spring musical without you. I wouldn't have done a lot of things without you."

Cassandra shakes her head in disbelief. "What did I—" she starts, but the words get caught in her throat. _What did I do to deserve you_, she wants to say. _Why do you love me when I'm such an awful person?_ But Rachel knows. Rachel always knows the things that Cassandra can never say. She lays down beside her and pulls her close, and it's weird being held like this when she's so used to doing the holding, but Rachel is very good at it.

"You _are_ a good person, Cassie, and a good teacher too. I love you, and I don't care if every single person in New York knows it."

She has to struggle for several minutes not to sob into Rachel's shoulder.

"Move in with me," she says once she's finally composed herself enough, and Rachel's eyes go very wide. "I'll pay the rent on your apartment so Sparkles doesn't end up homeless, if you want, just… I hate it when you're not here. I need you to be here."

Rachel's arms tighten around Cassandra's back. "Okay," she says quietly into Cassandra's ear, and Cassandra buries her face into Rachel's neck in the hopes that she can block out all of these ridiculous emotions that she's experiencing at once. "Okay."

xx

Rachel has never really considered herself to be very possessive. Not of people, at least. Sure, she expects monogamy from whomever she happens to be dating, but she's never felt like she _owned_ that person. A part of her always knew that Finn never belonged to her, in any case.

Still, when she sees that smirking idiot from her class sidle up to Cassie afterwards, leaning against the wall so casually and standing _much_ too close, she feels something ugly and rabid rise up in her chest, just aching for a chance to claw his beady little eyeballs out. She's sure she must have seen hundreds of people flirt with Cassie before: people at Starbucks, on the subway, other NYADA teachers, other students. Maybe it's the way that Cassie is smirking back, how they seem to mirror each other, two sides of the same coin.

Cassie catches her eye, tells the idiot she'll see him tomorrow, and comes over to meet Rachel at the door.

"I could go for a burger," she says, which she only ever does just to get Rachel to make a face. What she really means is that she's going to order a salad and only eat half of it.

They go to the café nearby and Cassie does just that while Rachel plays around with the idea of eating her soup and fumes silently at the thoughts that keep plaguing her.

"You and Michael seemed awfully chummy after class today," she says finally, and she's never been very good at keeping things in. It's just as well; Cassie has never been the type to play those games.

"Jealous, Schwimmer?" is Cassie's immediate response, raised eyebrow and all. It's exactly as Rachel predicted it would be, and she knows she makes some sort of weird face that's a cross between _No, I was just making an observation_ and _Yes, of course I am, obviously_ because Cassie chuckles and spears a cucumber with her fork.

"He was flirting very heavily with you," Rachel says, deciding there's no point in pretending.

"Honey, half of my students flirt with me," Cassie says after she's dipped the cucumber in her raspberry vinaigrette and eaten it. "In nine years of teaching, _you_ are the only one who's gotten anywhere with it."

"I never flirted with you," Rachel protests out of some ridiculous last effort to hold onto some shred of her pride.

"Exactly," Cassie says with a wink, and reaches across the table to tangle two of her fingers with Rachel's.

xx

But that asshole is at it again the next day, and the day after that as well. And it seems like Cassie's interactions with him get more and more intimate each day, and Rachel is fucking positive that she's not imagining this shit. She laughs way too loudly at whatever halfwit thing he must be saying to her, and her hand lingers on his shoulder for a second too long when she touches it. Rachel's sure she's had just about enough of that.

Cassie has a pair of handcuffs in her bedside drawer, and what she's done with them before now Rachel absolutely never wants to know, but she hides them under her pillow and then very stealthily uses them to chain Cassie's hands to the headboard while they're making out later that night.

"_Schwimmer_," Cassie growls, tugging on the handcuffs fruitlessly, and Rachel knows there will be hell to pay as soon as she lets Cassie out of them, but she can't be bothered about it right now when she's got a point to prove.

"Shut up," she orders, and then kisses Cassie as harshly as she can, all teeth and tongue.

She's done this enough times now to know exactly what drives Cassie nuts. Like, when she dips her tongue into Cassie's bellybutton, Cassie always hisses and arches up into her. And whenever Rachel digs her fingernails into Cassie's hips to keep her still, it always draws this weird half growl/half whimper out of her throat. The best is when she bites at the skin just where Cassie's thighs meet her sex, and she moans Rachel's name, low and desperate every single time.

Rachel usually uses this knowledge to speed Cassie along to climax. Now, she uses it to torture her—drag her to the brink and then pull her back. Just when she thinks Cassie may actually break the headboard out of sheer frustration, Rachel slides back up her body and proceeds to fuck her with three fingers, _hard_.

"You. Are. Mine," she barks directly into Cassie's ear, punctuating each word with a full-body thrust. Cassie comes apart with this high-pitched keening noise that Rachel has never heard come out of her before, heels digging painfully into Rachel's calves.

Rachel stares down at the aftermath, at Cassie slumped into the pillow with her eyes closed, panting and sweating and red-faced, and her wrists are bright red from all the straining she did against the handcuffs. Rachel reaches for the key, unlocks them with shaky hands, and falls into Cassie's body with a sob.

Cassie's arms wrap around her immediately; her whole body wraps around her, really, and she threads her fingers through Rachel's hair and holds her as close as physically possible while Rachel's tears soak her shirt.

"Rachel," she murmurs, "Rachel. I am yours. I am," and she kisses Rachel's face all over.

They make love after that, and Rachel claws at Cassie's back like she can't get close enough, like she would crawl right inside of her if she could, gasping breathlessly until she comes with a soft cry, Cassie close behind her. Rachel has never felt safer.

xx

So.

Living with Rachel is both exactly what she expected it to be, and exactly what she didn't expect it to be. There were some things she already knew going in, like the fact that Rachel takes over an hour to get ready for bed in the evening, and that she uses pretty much every spare moment as an opportunity to do vocal warm ups, particularly in the shower at 7 A.M. when Cassandra is still sleeping. So it's just that she has to experience that stuff every day now instead of every handful of days.

What Cassandra _didn't_ know was that living with Rachel would entail having to find space in her loft for an elliptical, which, _really_. Every single day, like clockwork, Cassandra is disturbed from sleep by Rachel's infernal Matthew Wilder alarm clock, and Rachel proceeds to jump immediately from bed, change into workout clothes, and exercise for an hour while humming softly to whatever song is playing on her iPod. Just when Cassandra gets used to the noise of that and is about to fall back to sleep, Rachel hops off the elliptical and heads to the shower, where she then does the aforementioned warm ups at the top of her lungs.

Eight months ago, Cassandra would have kicked anyone out of her apartment if they tried that shit even once, let alone every day. Now… well, she doesn't want to talk about it. She's _adjusting_.

Things Cassandra did not expect about living with Rachel:

1. The way her chest feels like it's going to split open with happiness when she comes home some days to find Rachel dancing around her kitchen while cooking dinner.

2. The fact that Rachel never complains if Cassandra leaves a plate or glass sitting around, or a wet towel on the bathroom floor, or the bed unmade. She'll just clean it up herself without ever saying a word. She doesn't even seem to notice or mind at all.

3. Forcing Rachel to watch horror movies when it's Cassandra's night to pick. Rachel spends the majority of the time with her head buried in Cassandra's arm. Cassandra always manages to convince her that it's okay to look up right when something terrifying happens, and then cackles for the next five minutes when Rachel screams at the top of her lungs and practically tries to burrow into the couch cushions.

4. Cuddling. Before Rachel moved in, they would have sex almost every time she came over. Who knew if something would come up and Rachel would be too busy to come over for a couple of days? Now that Rachel is a permanent fixture at Cassandra's apartment, they take whole nights to just rest and enjoy being in each other's arms. It's nice.

5. Rachel's laugh. Living with Rachel means that Cassandra gets to hear it much more frequently. Not only that, but she also gets to be the _cause_ of it more frequently. Something about hearing that infectious giggle makes Cassandra feel like some things previously labeled "impossible" can actually be moved into the "definitely possible" column of life.

xx

Rachel loves New York, loves the hustle and bustle of the city and the feeling of promise she gets each time she steps outside. Still, sometimes she misses the quiet that Lima offered, the open spaces and simplicity.

"Cassie?"

"Schwimmer," Cassie replies without glancing up from the arts section of the newspaper.

"Do you know of anywhere we can go outside of the city that's... open? Where there's grass and trees?" Rachel asks. Cassie's pale eyes dart up to meet Rachel's and she raises an eyebrow.

"Missing home, Schwimmer?" she asks curiously. Rachel shrugs.

"I just think it would be nice to get some fresh air."

Cassie bites her lip and her eyes narrow and go unfocused. It's the look she always gets when she's giving something some actual thought.

"Sure," she says suddenly, as though the conversation had been continuing on all along. Her eyes are clear again. "I know a place, if you want to go."

"That would be wonderful," Rachel says with a smile, and Cassie's own lips quirk in response.

"Alright. Let me shower and we can go."

Cassie folds her paper up (the wrong way, of course) and tosses it on top of the pile before getting up to amble off to the shower, placing a quick kiss on the crown of Rachel's head as she walks by. Rachel waits until she can hear the shower running before she gets up and busies herself with packing the perfect afternoon picnic. Cassie emerges just as she's finishing up, dressed in jeans and an old college production t-shirt with her wet hair piled up on top of her head in a bun.

They drive for a few hours—Rachel doesn't even know what direction they're going in—only to end up basically in the middle of nowhere. It looks pretty similar to something she might find after half an hour of driving in Ohio: huge grassy fields with a few oak trees scattered about. Cassie drives right onto the grass and parks the car.

"I assume this will do," she says, glancing at Rachel for approval.

"It's perfect," Rachel confirms, leaning over the console to place a kiss on Cassie's cheek. She hops out of the car and grabs the picnic basket out of the back, already feeling invigorated by the open space and blue sky. "Come on!" she yells over her shoulder, running over to the nearest tree.

She's already spread out the red-and-white-checkered blanket and is in the process of unpacking the basket by the time Cassie gets there.

"_That_ did not come from my apartment," Cassie says, pointing to the blanket.

"It did when I moved in," Rachel says matter-of-factly, and Cassie rolls her eyes.

"You are such a cliché," she mutters, but sits down on the blanket and looks pretty pleased about the whole situation.

"Cassie," Rachel says after they've picked at the food for a while and are now lying on the blanket, Rachel's head resting on Cassie's stomach, "where do you come from?"

"Iowa," Cassie says very reluctantly after a few stretched seconds. Rachel's head snaps up. She looks at Cassie incredulously.

"But! You said—" she splutters.

"I _know_," Cassie sighs. "Why do you think I was such an asshole to you? You reminded me of myself."

Rachel feels as though her whole world has been turned upside down, which is stupid really, because Cassie being a small-town girl like herself is hardly a big deal, but. Just knowing this small thing about her makes Rachel feel so much closer to her, like they're similar in more ways than she could ever guess.

"Tell me about Lima," Cassie says, guiding Rachel's head back down to her stomach and turning the conversation away from her background. It's fine. Rachel doesn't mind giving a little more of herself.

"What do you want to know? Lima is a typical mid-western small town."

"Of course it is. I don't really care about Lima. Tell me about you."

It's very broad, but Rachel has never been one to shy away from talking about herself if she's honest, so she tells Cassie as much as she cares to. It ends up being pretty much all the important things, from Shelby and her dads to that first day of dance class. Cassie twirls her fingers in the ends of Rachel's hair all the while with little interruption.

"I kissed my sister's boyfriend when I was sixteen," Cassie says after she's been finished for a few minutes, and Rachel's not sure where this is going, but she's content to let it happen. "I had never been kissed before and I was scared because most of the other girls I knew had. Chris said the first one was always the scariest, and he offered to make it easy for me. He was always sweet to me, and I figured it was better to do it with someone I trusted than a random guy who might try to take it farther than I wanted." She stops to laugh mirthlessly. "His lips touched mine for less than a second; it hardly even qualified as a kiss. But Melissa, my sister, walked in right as it happened. She flipped out—broke up with Chris, stopped talking to me unless it was to say something nasty, started spreading rumors about me being a whore. No matter what I said or did to try to make it up to her, she never forgave me. Two days after I lost my virginity to my first boyfriend, I walked in on her having sex with him. We've barely said two words to each other since."

"Cassie, I'm so sorry," Rachel says quietly, and _God_, their lives are so similar it's almost scary.

"You get over it eventually," is Cassie's reply, "family doing shitty things to you. Eventually you stop blaming yourself and move on."

Rachel rolls over onto her stomach so she can see Cassie properly. She looks… calm.

"How?" Rachel asks, because she still thinks about Shelby every day, and wonders if there was anything she could have done differently to make her mother want to stay her life.

"With time," Cassie says simply, and reaches out to touch Rachel's cheek, "and a little help from the people who love you."

xx

The school year starts too quickly, and Cassandra is saddled with another room full of idiotic freshman that have hardly any talent, and even less personality.

Rachel has moved on to a different dance class, taught by a different teacher, and decided to TA for Carmen Thibodeaux, thereby cutting all academic ties with Cassandra. Which basically means that they don't really have to be as careful on campus as they did last year.

So, when it comes time for Cassandra to teach these sexless freshmen of hers how to tango, she decides to ask Rachel if she'll come in for a demonstration about sexiness and passion.

"I seem to recall you telling me that I was devoid of sexiness when we did that lesson last year," Rachel says as she brushes her teeth that evening. "You hated my _Oops_ routine."

"I didn't hate your _Oops_ routine," Cassandra counters.

"You _said_ you did," Rachel reminds her through a mouth full of toothpaste.

"I lied." She walks behind Rachel to catch her eyes in the bathroom mirror and whisper in her ear. "The whole time you were performing, I was daydreaming about throwing you down on one of those tables and fucking you in front of Brody and everyone else. I liked it _so_ much that I went home that evening and made myself come three times while thinking about you."

Rachel promptly chokes on her toothpaste while Cassandra smirks and saunters off to bed.

"I suppose I have enough time to help you out," Rachel says demurely half an hour later when she comes out of the bathroom and pulls the covers back on her side of the bed.

"That's very generous of you, Schwimmer," Cassandra says, leaning over to give Rachel a kiss. Rachel accepts it, but then pulls back very suddenly.

"You will _not_ call me Schwimmer in front of your students," she says, and her face is so stern that Cassandra can't help but chuckle.

"Whatever you say, baby girl," she agrees, and pulls Rachel into her.

xx

She asks Rachel to come into class the day before the demonstration.

"Dress like you would have dressed last year. Straighten your hair and wear less makeup," she instructs.

It's part of a carefully constructed plan to show the imbeciles in her class that sexiness can come from the most unexpected places, if you only know where to look for it. Yes, she's well aware that this is pretty much the opposite of what she told Rachel last year. She's _growing_, or whatever.

For once in her life, Rachel does as she's told with no argument, and shows up at Cassandra's class the next morning wearing the exact outfit she wore when she came to apologize to Cassandra for her outburst after the _Oops_ performance. Cassandra doesn't know if it's intentional, but knowing Rachel, it probably is.

"Alright, everybody shut up," she shouts in order to start class. They've learned pretty quickly to obey that command. "This is Rachel Berry. She was in this class last year, and I've asked her to come back for a day or two to help me teach you unattractive little toddlers exactly what it takes to tango." She lets them take a few seconds to look Rachel over, assess her, wonder how in the hell _this_ girl is the one that was chosen to teach them this lesson. "But we'll get to that tomorrow. Today, you're all going to show me that you're even _worthy_ of learning the tango."

And so class goes on, and Cassandra spends the entirety of it insulting them all to tears. It's warranted, really. After they see her and Rachel dance together tomorrow, they'll understand. They'll understand everything.

Cassandra has Rachel show up wearing a skimpy black dress, high heels, and her usual wavy hair and dark eyeliner the next day. When she walks through the doors (struts, really, and it's amazing the impact that Rachel's wardrobe has on her confidence), some of the kids look at her like she's a transfer student they've never seen before. The ones that have two brain cells to rub together practically have to pick their jaws up off of the floor.

"I'd like to reintroduce you all to Miss Rachel Berry, my assistant instructor for the day," Cassandra says with a hint of pride in her voice, and the clueless students finally understand what the fuck is going on now judging by the way their eyes pop out of their heads. "After watching your abysmal attempts at the tango yesterday, I've decided to show you what a _real_ tango looks like. You can't just know how to execute the moves. You have to be able to _feel_ the passion between yourself and your partner. You have to exude sex. Seduce the audience. They should be crawling on their hands and knees to get a piece of you by the time you're done. Get it?"

But they don't. Of course they don't—they're eighteen-year-old kids, most of whom have probably never even had anything that qualifies as sex in Cassandra's book, let alone a proper orgasm. Cassandra nods to her TA to cue the music and crooks her finger at Rachel. Rachel doesn't even have to ask if Cassandra will be leading or not, just walks over and hooks one of those perfect legs around Cassandra's hip, and yeah. This is going to be the best lesson she's ever given.

She honestly has no fucking idea what goes on after the music starts. There could be a fire burning the city to ashes around them and she wouldn't even know it. This is not the first time she's ever danced with Rachel, of course, but it's the first time they've tangoed together, and _fuck_ if it isn't almost better than sex. They know each other's bodies so well by now that there's hardly any need for adjustment. They just move. Their eyes never break contact, and Cassandra can literally watch Rachel's pupils grow steadily larger, until her eyes are almost completely black. Her cheeks and chest flush, her breathing becomes slightly labored, and there's a very fine sheen of sweat across her hairline. Cassandra is aware that she's probably in a similar state.

When the music stops and they finally halt, there is complete and total silence from the other occupants of the room. Cassandra can hear the soft sounds of Rachel's panting beside her as she looks over the faces of her students. There's not a single person who doesn't look like they need to either faint or run to the bathroom to rub one off.

Good. That's exactly the reaction they _should_ be having.

"Now you see what it takes to make the perfect tango—the confidence, the passion, the knowledge of not only your own body, but your partner's as well—and why none of you are anywhere close to being capable of it. I want you all to go home and spend the weekend doing _whatever_ it takes to get comfortable enough with your bodies to try this again on Monday. Class dismissed."

xx

Quinn comes down to visit for a weekend in the middle of September, so of course Rachel and Kurt take her out to Callbacks. Rachel asks Brody to come along, and _no_, she's not trying to play matchmaker or anything. She just hasn't seen Brody in a few days, and she's sure that he and Quinn will get along just fine.

"Cassie didn't come out?" Brody asks after he's given her a hug and she's introduced him to Quinn. Quinn gives her a weird look and Rachel blushes.

She'd fessed up to Brody about her relationship with Cassie not long after Kurt found out. He was surprisingly unsurprised.

"Yeah, I kind of guessed," he'd said, and Rachel had balked. "The way you two looked at each other, even from the start—I actually thought you turned me down because you had a crush on her and just used your boyfriend as an excuse."

But he's been an absolute gentleman about it the whole time, willing to listen to Rachel whether she's gushing about something amazing and thoughtful that Cassie did for her, or complaining about the many frustrations that come with being in a relationship with Cassie.

"She wanted me to have a night out with my friends, since Quinn is in town," Rachel explains.

"Who's Cassie?" Quinn whispers while they search for a table.

"My girlfriend," Rachel mumbles reluctantly, because she didn't plan on telling Quinn this way.

Quinn raises an eyebrow, but she seems to know that this isn't the time to broach that subject. Instead, she follows Brody to the bar to get them all drinks.

"Seems like no one is finding out about this the way you want them to, huh?" Kurt asks with a sympathetic smile. Rachel's pout is probably very predictable.

Brody gets them all started by singing some Adele, and then Rachel and Kurt reenact their infamous _Defying Gravity_ diva-off. Quinn sings some Colbie Caillat before they all goad Rachel (without very much goading at all) to do her perfect rendition of _Don't Rain On My Parade_. They end their night with Quinn and Brody doing a duet of _Video Games_ and… oh. Well, she seems to remember looking at Finn when they sang together the way that Quinn and Brody are looking at each other now, but maybe she's just projecting or something.

Quinn and Brody spend nearly the entire journey back to Kurt's place (where Quinn is staying) talking very animatedly about Ernest Hemmingway, and Rachel didn't even know that Brody _liked_ Hemmingway, to be honest. But Quinn looks alive in a way that is very attractive on her, and Rachel thinks that she made the right decision in changing her major to English last year.

"So, do I get to meet this Cassie?" Quinn asks later, while Kurt is showing off his latest project for his internship to Brody.

"Eventually," Rachel says, and when she doesn't elaborate Quinn nudges her with a shoulder. "She doesn't really have a family, so it's kind of weird for her when it comes to meeting mine. We're getting there, though. I'm trying to get her to come home with me for the holidays this year. Hopefully everyone I care about will get to meet her then."

It seems to be enough for Quinn, because she nods and lets the subject drop.

"I'm glad you decided to let your hair grow out again," Rachel continues, twirling a piece of Quinn's summer-blonde locks around her finger. "I always liked it long." Pause. "I think Brody likes it, too."

Quinn blushes furiously and kicks Rachel's shin. Rachel's yelp is mixed with joyous laughter.

xx

"Come to Lima with me over winter break," Rachel pleads while she packs her bags to go home for Thanksgiving.

"Schwimmer," Cassandra says apprehensively, because they've been over this before.

"Come on, Cassie. It's been a few months now since I told them about us, and they're mostly okay about it now, but they really want to meet you. _I_ want them to meet you." Cassandra hates that Rachel is pretty much begging her for something as basic as meeting her parents, but she really does think that her concerns are valid here. "At least come for Hanukkah. If it's too much for you, we can come back to New York after that."

When Cassandra doesn't respond, Rachel sighs. "Think about it while I'm gone," she says, and takes Cassandra's face in her hands to kiss her.

It's pretty much _all_ Cassandra thinks about for the entire week. Whether she's dancing at the studio or watching the evening news, she thinks about what it will be like to meet Rachel's fathers. Rachel showed her a picture of them once, and they definitely weren't what Cassandra was expecting. One of them was a tiny little Jewish man with dark, thinning hair and a crooked smile. The other was a tall African-American with a stern face, but caring eyes. Cassandra listened as Rachel told her all about how both men donated sperm and that they still didn't know which one was Rachel's biological father. She didn't really have the heart to tell Rachel that she was pretty positive she could solve that riddle without really trying.

She's heard Rachel on the phone with her fathers a number of times in the last year, and even though she only ever hears one end of the conversation, she can tell that they are very concerned and protective of her. It's that fact that makes her so nervous to meet them, because Rachel clearly cares about her dads a lot, and Cassandra _knows_ that she's not the ideal match for any parent's pride and joy. She's blunt and abrasive, drinks way too much, and anyone who knows anything about Broadway will have heard about her little outburst ten years ago. Add to that the fact that there's a fifteen-year age difference and that Cassandra was Rachel's _teacher_ when they first got together, and… it really doesn't look good, no matter what Rachel says.

But to be honest, Rachel hardly ever asks anything of Cassandra, and this is clearly important to her. Rachel is only asking her for eight days. And Cassandra _loves her_. When you put all of that together, it really shouldn't take as much thought as it does.

"I'll go," she says first thing when she picks Rachel up from the airport. Rachel's smile makes it all worth it.

xx

So that's how she ends up on a plane to Dayton (she fucking hates planes), gripping at Rachel's thigh like she might actually rip it off, because she's usually halfway to plastered by the time the plane takes off, and orders at least three vodka tonics during the flight so that she doesn't have the mental capacity to ever consider the fact that they're 30,000 feet in the air with nowhere to go if something goes wrong.

But she can't very well be wasted the first time she meets Rachel's fathers, can she? Cassandra thinks she's generally more charming when she's drunk, but Rachel gave her a really dirty look when she tried to order a drink at the airport. At least she has the decency not to complain about the vice grip that Cassandra has on her leg right now.

Rachel's fathers are waiting for them at the arrivals gate, and Cassandra watches as Rachel runs straight into the Jewish one's arms for a hug. That pretty much leaves her face to face with the black one, who is extremely tall and quite muscular. He looks Cassandra up and down with much scrutiny, before finally holding out a large hand.

"You must be Cassie," he says, and she's not sure how she feels about him calling her that until she remembers that they're probably pretty close in age and she's dating his nineteen-year-old daughter. So yeah, he can call her whatever he wants.

"Cassie, this is my daddy, Hiram, and my dad, Leroy," Rachel says, pointing to the Jewish dad and the black dad respectively.

"It's nice to meet you both," Cassandra says, trying for a smile. She's not sure if she's really successful or not, but Rachel grabs her hand and practically drags her toward the baggage claim.

"How was the flight, girls?" Hiram, who seems to be the more agreeable of the two, asks while they wait for the bags to come through.

"I thought it was perfectly enjoyable," Rachel says. "Cassie's afraid of flying, though, so I'm sure she doesn't agree."

Cassandra barely resists the urge to glare at Rachel for spilling that weakness to her fathers within two minutes of their meeting. But then she catches the slightest hint of a smirk on Leroy's face, and… okay, so maybe that's the key to making this week go smoothly. They're her girlfriend's parents, not NYADA students. She doesn't have to be an impenetrable bitch around them. In fact, that's probably the opposite of what she wants to do.

"Just show them the real you, the Cassie that I fell in love with," Rachel had told her. "Once they see how good you are and how much you mean to me, they'll love you."

Rachel sees her bag come around the belt and practically jumps up and down while pointing at it. It breaks Cassandra out of her reverie, and she smirks at the little dork beside her.

"I'll get it," she says, and goes over to haul Rachel's gigantic pink suitcase off of the conveyor belt, along with her own black one.

"Honestly, honey, did you have to bring every single thing you own back with you just for Christmas break?" Hiram says, and that's pretty much the exact same thing that Cassandra had asked her when she'd seen all the shit that Rachel was packing.

Leroy takes Rachel's bag from her, and she thanks him quietly while listening to Rachel explain, probably for the hundredth time, that she needs to make sure she's prepared for all possible weather and social conditions.

"Was she always like that?" Cassandra asks in an attempt to break the ice with Leroy.

"From birth," he replies. "We had to pack multiple outfits when we took her out as a baby because she'd get tired of one and cry until we changed her into another."

Cassandra can't help but laugh, because that's just _so_ Rachel. Rachel turns around to glare at them.

"I heard that, Dad, and it is certainly _not_ funny, Cassandra," she huffs. Leroy raises an eyebrow, looking between the two of them, but Cassandra rolls her eyes.

"She thinks it's threatening when she uses my full name, but I just think it's cute that she tries to be so tough," she murmurs, and Leroy cracks an actual grin for the first time since they arrived.

Yeah, she thinks maybe she can do this whole meeting the parents thing.

xx

They get to the Berry house just before dinnertime, and it's pretty much exactly what she expected it to be.

The décor is neat, stylish, warm. It manages to be both modern and welcoming at the same time, and it's exactly the kind of place she would expect someone like Rachel Berry to grow up in. She can't decide which one she thinks is responsible for the decorating, so she just tells them they have a lovely home after she looks around for a minute or two.

"Thank you! It's all Leroy's doing, to be honest. He doesn't even let me go near Sheets N Things anymore," Hiram says, and Cassandra has no idea what in the hell he's talking about, but she now knows exactly where Rachel gets her incessant babbling from.

Speaking of Rachel, there are pictures of her literally fucking everywhere. Her life is practically chronicled day by day on the fireplace mantle. There are whole walls and shelves dedicated to just Rachel's face, and it explains _so _much.

"Do you cook, Cassie?" Leroy asks suddenly.

"Dad, she's our guest," Rachel chastises, and Cassandra doesn't even know how she heard him while she was busy chattering away to Hiram the whole time. She figures out pretty quickly that Leroy's question really means _are you going to make yourself useful and come help me in the kitchen?_ And no, Cassandra doesn't really cook except for weekend breakfast after she's spent hours going down on Rachel the night before (and a little bit that morning), but she can chop up some vegetables or whatever without cutting off a finger.

"Sure, I can help," she agrees, and she doesn't know why Rachel looks so fucking surprised. Bitch. She can be helpful when she wants to.

So Hiram helps Rachel take all of their shit upstairs and Cassandra resigns herself to unsupervised conversation with Rachel's very protective father while there are sharp knives being used. She still doesn't know what the hell they're making, even after fifteen minutes of prep work, but it's obviously some big vegan dish that Rachel probably loves. They're the type of family that would do that—make their daughter her favorite meal whenever she comes home from college for the holidays.

"So, Rachel tells us that you're the best dance teacher at NYADA," Leroy finally says after far too many minutes of uncomfortable silence.

She's not really sure if she should try to be humble or not, but yeah, she fucking _is_ the best dance teacher at NYADA. That's why she's been there for so long and that's why they put her with the annoying, talentless freshmen.

"I'm good at my job," Cassandra says, and hands him a cutting board full of chopped tomatoes.

"And sleeping with a student… you think that's a good decision?"

He asks it very nonchalantly, and well, apparently he's not a fan of beating around the bush. Which is fine; that shit has never been Cassandra's strong suit anyway.

"Sleeping with a student? No, that's probably not a good idea," she replies. Leroy turns to look at her and she meets his gaze steadily. "Loving Rachel… well, now that's the best decision I've ever made."

He tries not to smile, she can tell, but he does anyway.

xx

Rachel's not really sure what happened in the kitchen—she's really afraid to ask, but whatever it was, her dad has suddenly warmed up to Cassie in a way that he never did with Finn. Sometimes even she knows when not to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Her family is really not all that religious, but they go through the motions of lighting the candle and praying at sundown, and then they exchange their gifts.

They end up sitting in the living room, Rachel and Cassie on the couch and her fathers on the loveseat. Cassie still doesn't seem all that comfortable with any sort of PDA in front of her dads, but Rachel's not having any of that shit. She presses close into Cassie's side and holds her hand in her lap, in very plain view. Her daddy looks at them like he thinks they're the cutest thing he's ever seen, while her dad regards them without much of an expression at all. She knows him, though, and if he really minded, his temple would be twitching with rage by now.

Most of the time is spent talking about Rachel's school and a little bit about Cassie's job and background. Cassie has been mildly subdued by a few glasses of wine by now, so she answers the questions with relative ease.

When Rachel yawns for the fifth time in as many minutes, she decides it's time for them to go to bed. She can tell that Cassie is exhausted, if the circles under her eyes are any indication, and it really has been a nerve-wracking day for her. Rachel kisses both of her dads goodnight and leads Cassie upstairs.

"Am I relegated to the guest room, or…" Cassie trails off when they come to stand in front of Rachel's door. Rachel scoffs.

"Please, we sleep together in the same bed any other time, which I'm sure they're well aware of. Besides, my room is sound-proofed."

Cassie's eyebrow quirks at that. Rachel grins and pulls her inside.

"Christ, it's like somebody ate the Barbie Dream House and then threw it up all over your bedroom."

"It's not that bad," Rachel protests, and feels herself pout. Cassie laughs and pulls her in for a kiss.

"Sure, Schwimmer, whatever you say. Now what's this about sound proof walls?"

Rachel is still laughing as she falls back onto the bed.

xx

They take a tour around town the next day—what little of it there is, anyway. It reminds Cassandra too much of her own hometown, maybe with a few less cows. She pretty much hates it. They drive past the high school and Rachel contemplates visiting for a moment, but then decides against it for now. Thank _God_. The last thing Cassandra needs is to revisit high school.

She really needs a coffee, but apparently Starbucks doesn't exist in this hellhole. They end up having to drive thirty minutes outside of town to get to this place called The Lima Bean. Which, _really_?

Rachel goes to get their order while Cassandra finds them a table. She swears the woman sitting next to them is like a forty-year-old version of Rachel, but whatever. She's talking to some guy with a leather jacket and a buzz cut, and wow, if that isn't a mid-life crisis waiting to happen. It's not until Rachel comes back with their coffee and turns white as a sheet that she realizes she might have picked the wrong table. The woman beside her gets the exact same look on her face when she sees Rachel standing there.

"Rachel," she whispers. The guy turns around and jumps up out of his seat to hug Rachel.

"My Jewish-American Princess! I didn't know you were in town."

Rachel looks like she's going to vomit, which this idiot seems to finally realize while he looks back and forth between the woman who is almost certainly Rachel's mother and Rachel herself. He rubs the back of his neck awkwardly.

"Uh, I guess you two know each other already."

"Not really," Rachel snaps, color coming back to her face immediately, and Cassandra can't help but be impressed by how vicious she sounds right now. Still, she decides that maybe she should intervene before things get really ugly.

"Maybe we should get out of here, Schwimmer," she says, standing up to take the coffee before Rachel squeezes them so hard that the lids pop off.

"Damn, she's with you?" the idiot asks, and it sounds like he's already filing things away for his spank bank.

"Rachel, please," her mom says, and Cassandra thinks Rachel said her name is Shelby. "Why don't you and your friend join us?"

"Oh, _now_ you want to talk to me? Sorry, I don't have time for you. Why don't you call me in another year or two when you remember you have another daughter again."

Rachel is practically spitting venom by now and Cassandra isn't sure if she should keep her distance or not.

"Rach…" the boy says softly, like he's imploring her to be nice to this woman who pretty much ignored her existence for a few years.

"Stay out of it, Noah," Rachel says, shouldering past him. "Let's go, Cassie."

For once in her life, Cassandra follows an order without arguing.

xx

The anger only lasts for as long as it takes them to make it out of the coffee shop, and Rachel is sobbing by the time they hit pavement.

"I'm so sorry," she cries into Cassandra's chest, and by this point she's pretty much ready to storm back into the shop and rip that woman's head off.

"You don't have anything to apologize for, baby girl," she murmurs into Rachel's hair.

The door to the coffee shop opens, and _Christ_ if it isn't fucking Shelby, come to make things worse, no doubt. Cassandra actually growls and bares her teeth at the woman like some kind of pit bull.

"Rachel, I'm sorry," Shelby says, like those words come out of her mouth all the time when no one's around to hear them. "Please just talk to me." Rachel only clings to Cassandra tighter, cries harder.

"You need to leave now," Cassandra says lowly. Shelby sighs, and there are tears in her eyes, but Cassandra couldn't give less of a fuck if she tried.

"Call me if you change your mind," she says, and walks back into the coffee shop.

Cassandra relaxes once Shelby is gone and holds Rachel close until she can finally compose herself enough to walk to the car.

xx

She opens up the front door the next day to find Puck standing there with a Tupperware container in hand, looking very cagey.

"Hello, Noah," she says wearily.

"Hey," he says, but doesn't follow up, just sort of shifts back and forth on his feet.

"Can I help you with something?" Rachel finally asks, because she's really not in the mood to stand there all day waiting for Puck to grow a pair and speak.

"Um, yeah, look. About yesterday…"

Rachel sighs and opens the door wider, stands back and gestures him inside. He does so cautiously, as if he's afraid that Rachel has some sort of guard dog waiting around the corner to attack him.

"Can I get you anything?" she asks once they finally make it to the living room.

"Beer?" he says with a slight smirk, and Rachel is not amused. She gives him a look that says as much and he just sort of chuckles, seeming much more at ease now that he's cracked a joke. "I'm good. But here, my mom wanted me to bring you some latkes." He hands over the container.

"That's very sweet. Tell her thanks for me."

She leads him into the kitchen with the intention of putting the latkes in the refrigerator. Cassie is there, sitting at the island in a pair of black yoga pants and a loose sweater that hangs off of one of her shoulders. It's already past noon, but they stayed in bed for a while and made a late morning of it. She's nursing a cup of coffee and reading the _New York Times_ ("Thank God your dad has good taste; I don't think I would have been able to survive reading the _Lima Daily Kill-Me-Now_ all week."), which she glances up from when Rachel enters.

Rachel puts the food away and turns around to find Puck standing stuck in the doorway, staring slack-jawed at Cassie, who is entirely unimpressed.

"Cassie, this is Noah Puckerman. Noah, this is Cassie," she says, standing in the middle of the kitchen with her hands on her hips.

"Holy shit Rach, she actually _is_ with you, isn't she?" Puck says with amazement. Rachel rolls her eyes and he turns towards Cassie. "You can call me, Puck, babe."

"And you can never call me babe again," Cassie replies with a deceptively sweet smile that has Rachel hiding a grin. Puck looks entirely too turned on for his own good.

"I'm sure you didn't come here to ogle my girlfriend, Noah," Rachel prods. It's amazing how quickly his demeanor changes at that. He looks at her seriously and nods, shoving his hands in his pockets.

"Yeah. You think we could talk in here?" he asks, indicating the living room.

Rachel nods and follows him out, catching Cassie's eye along the way. It's a silent offer for accompaniment, but Rachel is pretty sure that she'll be able to handle Puck without having another breakdown. She smiles reassuringly and Cassie turns back to her newspaper. Rachel knows she'll be there in an instant if things go awry.

She sits on the couch and Puck opts to perch on the coffee table in front of her, which is just so typical of him that it actually makes her heart ache a little. Despite all of this mess, she really did miss him. He's a good guy, no matter what mistakes he's made.

"So, yesterday kind of sucked."

"It's definitely not how I wanted my winter break to start off," Rachel agrees, pulling her feet up to sit cross-legged on the couch. "I didn't realize she was still around."

"She's not in Lima anymore, but she lives in a town nearby. I asked her to meet me yesterday so we could talk about me visiting Beth while I'm home for the holidays," Puck says. Rachel sucks on her teeth and tries not to look too hurt or say something really nasty again. Puck notices. "Look, I know you guys have your issues, but you're probably going to run into her a few times in your life. You can't lose your shit every single time."

"Excuse me, Noah, but you don't know what it's like," Rachel bites, and who is he to tell her how she should react to her own mother?

"Uh, yeah I do, babe. My dad abandoned me, too. At least Shelby tried to keep her distance once she thought it wasn't going to work out. My dad just came back whenever he needed something and kept getting my hopes up that maybe he was going to stick around each time. Shelby actually cares about you. She just doesn't know how to handle everything."

"Well maybe she should have figured it out before she dangled herself in front of me and then walked away to go raise your baby," Rachel snaps, and then sighs at the look of pain that crosses Puck's face. "Noah, I really appreciate you coming over to check up on me and clear the air, but there's just too much between Shelby and I for you to fix."

She stands up and walks toward the door. Puck gets the hint and follows.

"I don't mean to kick you out, but Cassie and I have plans today." She opens the door and he walks out. He steps off of the porch and then turns to look at her.

"She made a mistake, Rach. She wants to try to make up for it, but it's a two-way street. Aren't the holidays supposed to be about forgiveness or some shit anyway?"

No, she doesn't think that's exactly accurate. But as she watches him walk to his truck, it makes an irritating sort of sense.

"Let me know if you and your girl want to grab some beers later," he calls over his shoulder with a wink. "We'll have some fun."

She snorts and waits for him to drive away before she shuts the door.

xx

It's the last night of Hanukkah, but Cassie has agreed that they should stay for the remainder of Christmas break. It turns out that she gets along with Rachel's dad as if they're old pals meeting up at a high school reunion. They certainly have a similar sense of humor, which is slightly terrifying now that Rachel has realized it.

They've gone up to Rachel's room early tonight, leaving Rachel's fathers to watch reruns of _Survivor_, which Cassie blatantly refused to do. Rachel doesn't really blame her. Leroy had roped Cassie into watching almost the entirety of season one over the past two days. Cassie was starting to get a murderous gleam in her eye every time he reached for the remote.

Rachel lies back on the bed, hands clasped over her stomach and picking at her fingernails while she watches Cassie check her email.

"You know," Rachel says slowly, "I've always kind of thought of this as the first day we officially got together."

Cassie snorts. "That pathetic phone call I made to you last year? _That's _what you think of as the starting point of our relationship?"

"It was the first time you really tried. The first time I could tell you actually cared," Rachel replies softly, a small smile gracing her lips at the memory.

Cassie closes the lid to her laptop and swivels around in Rachel's desk chair. She gives Rachel a scrutinizing look, narrowing her eyes for a moment like she's really thinking about something, before getting up and walking over to her suitcase. It takes a few seconds of digging, but she finally comes out with a small present, neatly wrapped in shiny red paper.

"I want to give you something," she says, sitting cross-legged at the foot of Rachel's bed. Rachel sits up and looks at Cassie with shock. She wasn't expecting a gift. They hadn't talked about exchanging gifts for this holiday at all. "I was going to wait until Christmas to give it to you, but this seems a little more fitting," Cassie explains with a tiny smirk.

She hands the box over and Rachel takes it with trembling hands. She doesn't know what the hell she's so nervous about. It's not like Cassie is going to propose or anything. Still, she can sense with her psychic abilities that this is going to be an important moment. She takes a steadying breath before tearing the paper off and lifting the lid on the box.

Inside is a silver charm bracelet, already filled with a good number of charms. Rachel picks it up gently, as if afraid it will disintegrate at her touch, and lays it in her palm so that all of the charms spread out. The charms appear to be completely random, and don't make any sort of sense to Rachel.

"It was mine," Cassie says when Rachel looks up at her for an explanation. "My dad got it for me when I was young, after I got my first role. I was Mary in the Christmas production at our church, hence the cross. But he was so proud of me, always telling me how I was going to be a huge star. He bought me a new charm for every major role I got in a production and gave it to me on opening night. I used to wear it all the time, especially for luck whenever I'd go to an audition. I haven't worn it in a while, obviously. I'm pretty sure I've used up all of my luck. But you've got your whole career ahead of you, and you're going to be amazing. So I want you to have it. Maybe it'll bring you luck on your auditions. I put a gold star on it to make it official."

Rachel glances down and sees that yes, there is a gold star, standing out brightly amongst all of the silver. It takes a moment for her brain to process everything she's just heard, to cope with the fact that she's holding a huge piece of Cassie's history. It's a veritable Cassandra July museum, this charm bracelet, and Cassie is giving it to her. Cassie is giving Rachel a piece of herself—something with incredible personal value—on what Rachel considers to be their anniversary.

When she finally makes all of the connections, she launches herself at Cassie, almost knocking them both off of the bed. She's got her arms wrapped so tightly around Cassie's neck that it must be making it hard for her to breathe, and she's started bawling into Cassie's shoulder without even realizing it.

"I guess that means you like it," Cassie murmurs, rubbing Rachel's back while she cries like she's just been asked to star in the stage revival of _Evita_.

"I love you so much," Rachel sobs.

"Yeah, I love you, too, baby girl," Cassie says. It takes a few minutes, but Rachel finally stops crying long enough to sit up and let Cassie put the bracelet on her wrist. "So I guess this means we'll be going by the Hebrew calendar to keep track of our anniversaries from now on."

Rachel laughs and smacks Cassie's arm, then leans in for a kiss and tries not to start crying again over the fact that Cassie is so sure that there will be more anniversaries to keep track of.

xx

The first thing that Cassandra notices when Will Schuester opens the door to let them into his apartment is that he must be a total toolbag. Only a desperate idiot would keep his hair styled like that after 1987. He gives Rachel a hug that looks a little too comfortable for Cassandra's liking before introducing himself to her and inviting them in.

"I'm so glad you guys could make it, Rachel. It's going to be great to have all of my glee kids in the same room again," Schuester says with a huge, cheesy grin. "It's too bad Finn couldn't make it, but he's still doing drills on base."

Cassandra has to resist the urge to roll her eyes, and instead occupies herself with looking around the place and wondering why the hell it's so… _clean_. Seriously, there's not a speck of dust to be found in the place, and unless this guy is gayer than Sparkles, it doesn't make any sense. But a glance into the kitchen solves the mystery, because there's a bug-eyed redhead in there like, micro-scrubbing the counter with several bottles of industrial-grade cleaner, two rags, and a sponge. This must be the psycho guidance counselor that Rachel was telling her about. No wonder Rachel was so fucking neurotic when Cassandra first met her, if _these_ were her role models all throughout high school.

Schuester yells to his crazy fiancée that she and Rachel have arrived, and the crazy fiancée replies that she'll be out in a minute. At the rate she's going, Cassandra thinks, there's not going to be any countertop left soon. Schuester leads them into a living room, where there are already a couple of gangly looking high school kids scattered across the furniture.

A blonde girl in a red varsity jacket squeals when she sees Rachel and very gracefully unfolds herself from the weird ass pretzel pose she'd been sitting on the armchair in to hop up and practically tackle her into a hug. Once she's finished squeezing the life out of Rachel and sniffing her hair ("You smell like Lord Tubbington does after he puts on my sister's cotton candy body spray."), she turns to Cassandra with slightly dazed blue eyes.

"You look like Golden Hawk's famous daughter. I actually think I had a sex dream about you last night. You're really hot."

"Schwimmer, what the hell is she talking about?" Cassandra asks through gritted teeth while Rachel tries not to laugh her ass off.

"I think you mean Goldie Hawn, Brittany," she says through a giggle. "This is my girlfriend, Cassandra July."

"Daaaaaaaamn, white girl," an unfortunately dressed white boy in a wheelchair whistles.

"What happened to Finn?" an Asian girl with bad highlights whispers to the kid next to her, and she actually sounds kind of distressed, like she had personal stakes in Rachel's previous relationship.

"Well now I'm definitely going to have sex dreams about you," Brittany says blandly, and goes back to her seat.

Rachel has turned about ten shades of red from embarrassment, and so has Schuester for that matter, but she finally collects herself and clears her throat in order to introduce all of the people in the room. Cassandra won't remember half of their names—doesn't even try, honestly. She just gives them nicknames based on their ridiculous appearances and goes with it.

Schuester goes through the pleasantries of asking Rachel about school and Cassandra about her work. The crazy redhead comes in, finally, and Cassandra immediately dubs her Bambi. After that, it's mostly a lot of inane high school talk and reminiscing that Cassandra really doesn't care about, except for when someone mentions how Rachel killed this or that solo in a competition, which, duh. Her main source of entertainment is Brittany's random interjections about every fifteen minutes or so.

More people start to arrive, the first one being that idiot Puck. He shoots Cassandra a wink when he sees her. She responds with a look that promises she'll cut his balls off if he even tries to speak to her tonight. He's accompanied by an Aretha Franklin wannabe. After that is Sparkles, and Rachel jumps up immediately to squeal over him, like she doesn't see him several times a week back in New York. He comes over to give Cassandra a cautious hug in greeting, which she allows, if only because he's the only other person here that she knows.

The next two guests to show up get reactions out of the rest of the group like they're fucking celebrities. Brittany practically rockets out of her chair and into the arms of the brunette, where they proceed to make out, to the varying discomfort of everyone else in the room. The girl is obviously this Santana person that Rachel talks about so frequently. The other girl is another blonde. She completely ignores Santana and Brittany sucking face directly beside her and starts accepting hugs from the flood of people who run up to greet her. Rachel gets up and drags her over to Cassandra.

"Quinn, I'd like you to meet Cassie. Cassie, this is Quinn Fabray," Rachel says.

They shake hands, and Quinn has obviously mastered the fake _I don't fucking trust you_ smile, which Cassandra kind of admires, really.

"I've heard a lot about you," Quinn says. Her voice is soft and lilting. It's pretty easy to see why so many boys fawned over this girl, with her sparkling hazel eyes. "Some of it wasn't very flattering."

Cassandra's eyebrows shoot up into her hairline and she smirks, impressed with the set this girl must have on her. "Likewise," she replies, and Quinn's mouth quirks up in acquiescence.

"Berry, what the hell is this I hear about you going gay for Goldie Hawn's daughter?" Santana shouts over the din, and muscles her way through the crowd. "Out of the way, Fabray. I need to see this hot female piece of ass myself. _Jodeme_," she says, drawing out the word as she looks Cassandra up and down.

"Santana," Schuester snaps, but Santana ignores him.

"I didn't know you had it in you, Berry. Damn, why couldn't you have discovered your love for vagina sooner? Maybe then I wouldn't have had to suffer Potato Head Hudson outing me all by myself," she says. "I don't blame you for switching teams, though. I'm pretty sure having sex with him rushed me headlong into vegetarianism."

"Your vulgarity and inappropriateness is always such a pleasure, Santana," Rachel says with an eye roll, but she really doesn't look too bothered about it.

Santana shrugs. "I keep it real, and I'm hilarious."

"We've heard that before. Sit your butt down, Lopez," Aretha calls from across the room. Santana may or may not flip her off, but she does sit down—directly on top of Brittany.

A few more people show up after that, though no one that Cassandra really cares about. Schuester's apartment is virtually packed at this point, and if Cassandra can't stand listening to her own students babble, she feels like she might go crazy listening to all of these kids go back and forth at each other. Still, Rachel has been beaming for the past half hour, so Cassandra is content to let her have this.

It's only when Schuester suggests that they start singing Christmas carols that Cassandra thinks she might murder someone. She did not sign up for this shit at all. But no matter how much she growls and grumbles (and Santana is backing her up on this one), Aretha starts right into _All I Want For Christmas Is You_ and it's all down hill from there. It is singlehandedly the gayest experience of Cassandra's life, watching these idiots harmonize and perform perfectly synchronized choreography around Schuester's living room like they'd been waiting for this moment all fucking year.

The three cheerleader bitches get up and perform an overtly sexual rendition of _Santa Baby_ that has all of the boys shifting around uncomfortably. For some reason, Brittany insists on shooting suggestive glances in Cassandra's direction, which Rachel apparently does not find the least bit amusing. Idiot Puck and his idiot little brother do some _Jingle Bell Rock_, and Cassandra is sure that Puck must have pulled that guitar out of his ass, because she hasn't seen it until right this very moment.

"Kurt, let's do _Baby It's Cold Outside_!" Rachel stage whispers.

"Ugh, I wish I could, but I'm getting over a cold and my voice is shot," Sparkles says regretfully. Rachel pouts for a moment before turning to look at Cassandra.

"Don't even think about it, Schwimmer. I am not performing for this merry little band of closeted homosexuals."

"Please, Cassie. You never sing with me! Just this once," Rachel begs. "I'll make it worth your while when we get home tonight," she whispers.

Cassandra glares daggers at her, but Rachel levels her with this smoldering look that she really should never use in public. She starts singing (the girl part of course) and Cassandra has no choice but to jump in with the guy's part. The others begin harmonizing around them and Rachel grins, pulling Cassandra off of the couch and dancing around. Cassandra is slightly horrified when she realizes that she's actually kind of enjoying this. Performing with Rachel makes her skin tingle in a familiar way, a way that it hasn't done since the last time she performed on a stage. She finds herself playing along, circling Rachel around the living room and teasing Puck as she passes by.

Rachel is breathless with laughter by the time they're finished, and everyone around them claps and cheers. Santana is fanning herself with her hand. Quinn looks grudgingly impressed with her before glancing down to check her phone for the hundredth time since she arrived. They reclaim their seats and Rachel gives her a huge kiss for her efforts, which is mostly perfect except for all the perverts watching them.

They diverge from the path of Christmas music then and start recreating performances from their days in glee club. By the end of _We Are Young_, half of the room is in tears. Brittany asks if Rachel will sing something called _My Headband _for them, which has the rest of her classmates snickering, but Rachel just blushes profusely and blatantly refuses to sing the song or even discuss it. Everyone sort of breaks off into their own little groups to talk and fool around after that.

"Who have you been texting all night?" Rachel asks, bumping shoulders with Quinn, who has her head buried in her phone again. Quinn's blush is immediate, and Rachel does one of her ridiculously dramatic gasps. "Is it Brody?"

That gets Cassandra's attention. She raises an eyebrow and waits impatiently for Quinn to spill, but all she does is smile like a smitten schoolgirl, and since when the hell is Brody sweet-talking one of Rachel's high school friends?

"I knew you two would hit it off!" Rachel exclaims, clapping her hands together and bouncing up and down. "Does this mean we'll be seeing more of you in New York?"

"I don't know yet," Quinn says. "Maybe."

"Interesting," Cassandra mutters, and Rachel shoots her a _be nice_ look. Cassandra shrugs and smiles sweetly.

Their little group is interrupted by Brittany, who practically sits on top of Quinn.

"Hey Rachel, I just wanted to say that if you and your really hot celebrity girlfriend ever want to try a foursome, you should give Santana and I a call. I'm pretty sure we could outsell Kim Kardashian's sex tape if we recorded it," she says serenely. Santana stands off to the side, nodding in agreement. Cassandra just laughs because, seriously, what the _hell_?

It's well after ten when they all finally filter out of Schuester's apartment. Puck makes an offer of booze for anyone who wants to go back to his place, but Rachel declines. She hugs practically every person goodbye and makes Quinn and Santana promise to meet up with her again before they go back to school. With that, the two of them head back to Rachel's place.

xx

Rachel's dads are asleep on the couch when they walk in, with fucking _Survivor _playing in the background, of course. The two of them tiptoe upstairs. Cassandra excuses herself to Rachel's bathroom in order to remove her makeup and wash her face. When she emerges, she finds Rachel perched on top of the desk. She's wearing one of her old ridiculously short plaid skirts, a white button down shirt, which is only half buttoned and tied up Britney Spears style, knee high socks, and black Mary Janes. Cassandra stops in her tracks and stares, mouth hanging open slightly.

"Schwimmer… what are you doing?" she asks slowly. Rachel looks up at her innocently, twirling a finger in her hair, and Cassandra's mouth goes dry.

"I'm here for my extra credit, Miss July."

Cassandra's eyes darken and her brain shifts gears immediately. It's been ages since Rachel has called her that, and under any other circumstances it would probably disturb her. Right now, however, Cassandra slips into her role as the hard-ass professor with practiced ease.

"Well, I hope you're ready to do some hard work, Schwimmer. I don't give out extra credit for free," she says silkily, sauntering forward. Rachel swallows visibly and nods.

"Yes, Miss July. I'm ready to follow all of your orders," she says eagerly. Cassandra is already ridiculously wet by this point, but she ignores that for now and narrows her eyes.

"Good. Now stand up and bend over the desk," she orders. Rachel scrambles to do so immediately and Cassandra walks up behind her, pressing her body against Rachel's so that she can talk directly into her ear. She runs a hand up Rachel's thigh, under the skirt, where she finds that Rachel has decided to forego underwear. She clucks her tongue. "Being a slut isn't going to get you any extra points, Schwimmer," she says, and pinches the skin of Rachel's ass. Rachel whimpers and squirms.

Cassandra's eyes flicker over to a gold star mug on Rachel's desk, or more specifically, the pink plastic ruler sticking out of it. She reaches over and pulls it out, making sure that Rachel gets a good look at it, in case she wants to protest. Rachel remains silent except for her quick pants of breath, so Cassandra trails the ruler up the back of her thigh teasingly.

"You see, Schwimmer, you've mostly been an insolent brat in my class; always talking back and slacking off. It's despicable. So before you can earn extra credit in order to make up for your poor performance, I think you need to be punished first. What do you think?" Cassandra's voice is that frightening mix of sweetness and cold authority that she does so well, and Rachel shudders.

"Yes, Miss July," she breathes, and maybe she sounds a little bit nervous when she says it. Cassandra's pretty sure Rachel has never done anything like this before. But when she continues, her voice has a new sort of resolve to it. "Please punish me. I deserve it."

Cassandra smirks. "Good girl. Now, I'm going to give you the punishment you deserve, so you'll need to hold onto the desk tightly. And if it turns out that you can't handle your punishment, tell me to stop and I will." She doesn't plan on giving Rachel any more than she can take, but she wants to let her know that she has the option to stop this at any time. "Understood?"

"Yes, Miss July," Rachel replies, and she's practically whining at this point, ass sticking up into the air eagerly.

Cassandra bites her lip to keep herself from fucking Rachel on the spot and flips Rachel's skirt up to bare her ass. Rachel is visibly soaked, and the room already smells like sex. It's incredibly distracting, but Cassandra manages to keep her focus. She trails the ruler lightly across Rachel's ass cheeks, building the anticipation before she finally pulls back and smacks Rachel with the ruler. Rachel jumps slightly and yelps a little, and Cassandra gives her a second to adjust to the feeling before continuing the spanking. She doesn't do it too hard—just hard enough to sting and turn the skin of Rachel's ass a pretty, throbbing red.

Rachel is full on panting at this point, and her yelps of pain have turned into half moans as the ruler gets closer and closer to her swollen, wet center. Cassandra gets as close as she possibly can without actually hitting it, and then begins to move outward again. Rachel actually sobs with frustration.

"This is a time for punishment, Schwimmer, not pleasure," Cassandra explains coolly. "Are you sorry for the way you've acted in class yet?"

"Yes!" Rachel cries, gripping onto the desk with white knuckles. "Yes, I'm sorry I was so bad, Miss July!"

"And are you going to act that way again?"

"N-no," Rachel stutters, as Cassandra gets closer to her cunt again. "I promise I'll be good."

"Hmm, I suppose I believe you," Cassandra says, and gives one last hard slap across her ass. She tosses the ruler aside and rubs her hands over Rachel's red ass, squeezing firmly. Rachel hisses, but presses further into Cassandra's hands. "Are you ready for your extra credit now, Schwimmer?"

"Yes, please, Miss July," Rachel whines.

"Alright, then get on your knees."

"Miss July?" Rachel asks, turning to look at Cassandra with confusion. Cassandra merely raises an eyebrow.

"You have to do the work to get the points, remember, Schwimmer?" she says impatiently. "Now get on your knees, or we're done here." Rachel takes a shuddering breath and falls to her knees in front of Cassandra, looking up for her next instruction. "This isn't rocket science, Schwimmer. You know what to do. And you'd better make it good, or you won't get any credit."

She's wearing a skimpy dress, so all Rachel has to do is push it up a little and pull the thong down, which she does as hastily as if Cassandra were holding a gun to her head.

"Wait," Cassandra says suddenly, just as Rachel is leaning forward. Rachel jerks her head backwards and looks up at Cassandra nervously. "Unbutton your shirt first. I want something to look at."

Rachel scrambles to unbutton her shirt, and it really never ceases to amaze Cassandra how perfect Rachel's tits are. She takes a few seconds to admire them before nodding at Rachel to continue. Rachel leans in and gets to work. And _damn_ if Rachel doesn't do good work with her mouth. She sucks Cassandra's clit like she was made for it, and her tongue probes Cassandra's slit with expertise. Cassandra grips the back of Rachel's desk chair with one hand and the back of Rachel's head with the other, moaning loudly as Rachel eats her out like her life depends on it.

"Look at me," Cassandra commands breathlessly, tugging on Rachel's hair to get her attention. Rachel's eyes snap up immediately to stare into hers and Cassandra's head tips back as she comes. Rachel doesn't stop, though. If anything, she continues with renewed vigor, and soon Cassandra is coming again, and, almost impossibly, a third time. She finally pulls Rachel's head away when it gets to be too much. Rachel sits back on her heels and looks up, face glistening with Cassandra's fluids.

"Did I do well, Miss July?" she asks, and Cassandra is almost overwhelmed with the amount of love she feels for this woman. She manages to control her emotions for the time being and schools her features again.

"You did well enough, Schwimmer. You can have your extra credit points now," she says.

Rachel sighs with blatant relief. "Thank you, Miss July."

"Get up and bend over the desk again," Cassandra orders, and Rachel hurries to obey. She's just as soaked as before, maybe even more so now.

Cassandra drags two fingers through the wetness and Rachel moans immediately. This shouldn't take very long at all. Where Rachel excels at using her mouth, Cassandra is a professional with her fingers. She plunges three inside of Rachel without preamble and begins to fuck her, hard and fast. She slams into Rachel with such force that it makes the desk—and everything on it—shake violently. Rachel's moans are positively filthy, and the amount of profanity that spills from her mouth would make a sailor blush.

"You love this, don't you, Schwimmer?" Cassandra growls into her ear. "You love getting fucked like a slut by your college professor in your childhood bedroom while your fathers are right downstairs. I bet you've been fantasizing about this for so long, wondering just how loud I can make you scream before these soundproof walls stop doing their job and let the whole town know just how hard I'm fucking you."

The sounds coming out of Rachel's throat are not human by this point. It sounds like she might actually hyperventilate if she doesn't come soon. Cassandra puts her other hand to use, rubbing tight circles around Rachel's clit.

"Come on, Schwimmer. Come for me. Let everyone hear just how dirty you really are," she urges.

Rachel comes with a loud scream, Cassandra's name falling from her lips in a harsh gasp. She clenches around Cassandra's fingers so hard that it almost hurts. It takes her nearly a minute to stop coming. Her legs finally give out, and Cassandra has to catch her around the waist to hold her up. They sink to the floor together and Rachel slumps back against Cassandra, eyes closed and breath labored. Cassandra rakes her fingers through Rachel's sweaty hair while she calms down.

"You okay, baby girl?" she asks finally.

"I don't know. I think I may have seen God," Rachel croaks. Cassandra laughs and presses a kiss to her temple. "I can't believe we actually did that with my dads right downstairs."

"They're certainly getting their money's worth out of these soundproof walls, even if they aren't aware of it," Cassandra replies.

"Thank God," Rachel says. "My legs are still like jelly. Help me to the bed?"

It takes a minute, but they eventually make it to the bed in one piece. Cassandra pulls the covers down and Rachel collapses into it. She undresses Rachel and tosses her own outfit aside before crawling in and covering them up. Rachel musters enough energy to burrow into her side and Cassandra wraps her up in a tight hug.

"Thank you for coming with me tonight. It really meant a lot to me for you to meet them all. They're like family to me," Rachel says quietly. It's obvious that she's going to fall asleep at any minute.

"Well, I think most of them are clinically insane. At least that Brittany girl definitely is. And I'd mostly like to slap that Puck idiot. But they're not so bad, I guess."

Rachel smiles sleepily and sighs. "I love you, Cassie," she says, and then she's asleep.

Cassandra smiles despite herself. "Love you, too, baby girl."

xx

Quinn has some last minute Christmas shopping to do, so Rachel accompanies her to the mall and Cassie tags along because there's literally nothing to do in Lima and she's bored as hell. The mall in Lima is like shopping out of a catalogue compared to the shopping they could be doing in New York right now, but it's what they've got, and Rachel is happy to spend time with her two favorite girls.

"So are you going to spill about Brody, or what?" she asks eagerly. Quinn purses her lips and shoots Rachel a glare, but Rachel is well used to this by now. She grins and bumps Quinn's shoulder. "Come on, Cassie and I are dying to know."

"Yes, I can't wait to hear all about how our young Brody went from lusting after one girl from small town Ohio to lusting after another girl from the same small town in Ohio," Cassie says dryly. Rachel gives her an admonishing look and both Quinn and Cassie roll their eyes at the same time.

"There's not really much to tell. I mean, we've been texting and skyping since that time I visited. We talk all the time. I really like him, and I think he likes me, but there's nothing official. We've both been too busy to visit each other. I don't even know if I want to start a long distance relationship. It just seems like an added stress I don't really need," Quinn confesses.

"But if you really like each other, it would be worth it, right?" Rachel asks hopefully. She's always been a sucker for love, and she'd hate to see two people she cares about give up on it before it really even starts.

"Would it? I don't mean to be rude, but look at what happened to you and Finn." Rachel's face falls. Not being able to make it work with him still feels like a failure on her part, even if she knows now that it wasn't meant to be. Cassie remains stony-faced and silent. "You guys were supposed to be the greatest love of our generation or whatever. Even Brittany and Santana had their issues when Britt was still at McKinley, and they've been soul mates since they were in the womb."

"I just think you deserve to be happy after all this time, Quinn," Rachel says finally, softly. Quinn smiles appreciatively and squeezes Rachel's arm for a moment.

"I am happy, Rachel," she says. "I'm going to one of the greatest schools in the country, getting an education in something I really love. I stay in touch with my friends from high school, and I'm making great new friends in college, too. For the first time in my life, I am truly happy. And that's because I'm _not_ worrying about rearranging my entire world for a guy. I've finally learned that I don't need a man to make me happy."

Rachel feels an immense amount of pride swell up in her chest for this woman. She's seen Quinn at her very worst. She's seen Quinn fall on her face and get kicked while she was down almost throughout the entirety of high school. To see her rise above all of that and learn a lesson that Rachel's pretty sure she'll never fully understand is simply amazing.

"Speaking of letting things go," Quinn continues, steering them into a home decorating store, "Puck told me that you got into it with Shelby at the Lima Bean."

"I really don't want to talk about it, Quinn," Rachel says, her lips forming a thin line.

Quinn sets down the candleholder she was inspecting and turns to give Rachel a hard look.

"Look, I know the way she handled things was less than mature, and if I were you, I'd be pissed, too. But I can also understand how hard it is for her. I worry everyday that Beth will grow up to hate me for giving her up, and I'm constantly struggling with the decision to stay in her life or just let her go."

"Quinn, Beth is just a baby. It's a little different if you decide to step out of her life now and never come back. I was sixteen when I met Shelby, and she _chose_ your child over me. She didn't just come back and go away forever. She came back and hovered just out of my reach, so that I had to be haunted every day by her presence. I was _right there_, Quinn. If she'd wanted to speak to me, all she ever had to do was walk down the hall and do it. But she never did. She barely even looked at me when we passed each other in the hall. Do you understand how that felt? To have my own mother completely ignore my existence?"

She feels a tear slip down her cheek, and she's not exactly sure when she started crying, but Quinn looks regretful. Someone squeezes her hand. She looks up to see Cassie, who has been silent for so long, looking at her with an unreadable expression. Rachel thinks that Cassie would probably deck Quinn if she gave any indication that that was what she wanted. But it's not Quinn's fault. She's just trying to be a good friend, and Rachel is grateful for that. She squeezes Cassie's hand back to let her know that everything is okay.

"I'm sorry, Rach. I just can't help but think about myself in Shelby's situation. I think you should try to talk to her again, if for no other reason than to try to gain closure for yourself. You can only let something make you miserable for so long before you have to try to let it go. Think about all the energy you spend being angry with Shelby, and how you could be using that to do so many other things. You could have probably taken Broadway by storm by now," Quinn says.

Rachel chuckles and shakes her head. Quinn grins and goes back to her shopping, wandering off to look at something that resembles a ball of yarn.

"What do you think?" Rachel asks, looking up at Cassie, who sighs.

"You know I can hold a grudge until the end of time. If I never see my sister again, it'll be too soon." Rachel frowns at that and Cassie shrugs. "I think you should do whatever you think is going to make you feel better. And since you're the single most dramatic person I've ever met, I think that probably means confronting your mom." Rachel's frown gets deeper as she thinks about it for a minute. Cassie huffs impatiently. "Do you think we can get Princess Peach out of this god-awful store now?"

xx

She calls Shelby up.

"I want to talk," she says in a rush as soon as Shelby answers. The line is silent for almost a full minute.

"Okay," Shelby replies finally. They work out a time and a place to meet, and that's that. Rachel has to fight off a panic attack after she hangs up.

xx

Quinn, Santana, Brittany, and Cassie all agree to accompany her to the Lima Bean. Quinn is there for support, and tells Rachel she's proud of her for doing the mature thing. Santana swears that Shelby owes her for failing to lead the Troubletones to victory during their senior year, but Brittany whispers to Rachel later that Santana's really just worried about her and is totally ready to go _all_ Lima Heights if Shelby hurts her again. Cassie, obviously, is a necessity. Rachel can feel her protective gaze almost the entire time, and it makes her feel safe and strong.

The four of them sit at a table at the other end of the coffee shop, and Rachel wonders briefly if she needs to be concerned for anyone's safety. She can't decide if she should be more worried about Cassie and Santana getting into a catfight, or Brittany trying to cop a feel on Rachel's girlfriend under the table. It all becomes pretty irrelevant when Shelby walks in.

Rachel feels that immediate hitch in her chest that she always gets whenever she sees Shelby—that realization that this beautiful, talented woman is actually her mother; that she exists in flesh and blood. But that is almost instantly replaced by a nervous roiling in her stomach as Shelby catches sight of her and heads over. She picks at the cardboard sleeve on her coffee cup and tries to stop herself from bolting (or throwing up). Shelby gives her a tentative smile as she stops to stand across the table from her.

"Hi, Rachel."

Rachel swallows. "Hi," she says quietly. "Did you want to sit down? I got you a coffee."

"Thanks," Shelby says with another smile. She sits down and gingerly takes the cup that Rachel pushes towards her. Then she takes a sip and waits.

Rachel is silent for some minutes as she tries to gather her thoughts, but it seems like she can't ever think properly where Shelby is concerned. She feels like that sad, little girl in her sophomore year of high school again, just looking for someone to love her, to want her. She hates it. She's an adult now, and she's long past looking for acceptance from every person she meets. She has a group of incredible friends at the other end of the shop who came here just to support her, not to mention an amazing girlfriend who loves her. She is strong enough to get through this. She takes a deep breath and begins.

"My whole life, I only ever wanted three things. I wanted to star in _Funny Girl_ on Broadway. I wanted to meet Barbara. I wanted to be the youngest EGOT recipient in history. And I wanted to meet my mom. I guess that's four things, but that's not the point. The point is that even if I never got to be on Broadway, or even if wasn't able to meet Barbara or get an EGOT, none of that would really matter if only I got to do the fourth thing. I used to lie in bed and night and dream about who she might be, about what amazing things she must have been doing with her life that were keeping her from coming to see me. I'd imagine these incredibly dramatic scenarios about how we'd finally see each other and run towards each other in slow motion, and then we'd cry for a couple of hours and sing some incredibly heartfelt show tunes together."

She's not crying yet, surprisingly, but Shelby's eyes are watery even as she smiles at Rachel's fantasy.

"That's pretty much how I imagined it too, honestly," she says.

"Meeting you was the most important moment in my entire life. Watching you sing on that stage and realizing that I wasn't completely delusional, that my mom did exist and she was _beautiful_ and so talented, and _real_… I couldn't believe it. I thought I was the luckiest person alive. I thought my life was going to be perfect from that point on." Rachel shrugs and smiles self-deprecatingly. "I realize now that I was expecting a lot out of you. You were a real person with a real life, not some fictional character out of a play. But even then I just—I just wanted you in my life, Shelby. I just wanted my mom," Rachel says desperately, and yeah, she's crying now.

So is Shelby. It's the first time Rachel's really seen her cry. They even cry the same way.

"I'm so sorry, Rachel. I wanted so badly to be what you needed, but I just didn't know how. I got scared that you would be disappointed by me, that it was already too late for us. I thought maybe I could start over, like if I couldn't be a good mom to you, maybe I could be for someone else." Shelby chuckles humorlessly and wipes at her eyes. "I know it doesn't make any sense. I was awful to you, and it just kept getting worse. I didn't know how to face you or how to fix it."

"I hated you," Rachel says bluntly. "I hated you so much for what you did. But I hated myself even more for not being good enough for you."

"Oh, honey," Shelby chokes, and shuts her eyes against a new onslaught of tears. "It was the other way around, Rachel. I wasn't good enough for _you_. But you were always perfect. I couldn't be prouder of you if I tried."

"It's okay. I don't think that about myself anymore. And I'm just so tired of being angry at you." She reaches out to grasp Shelby's hand. "I know we're not going to fix this in one day, but I'm pretty sure I still have room in my life for my mom, if she has room in her life for me." Shelby sniffles and nods. "Maybe we could start by calling each other every once in a while when I go back to New York?"

"That would be nice," Shelby agrees.

"Okay," Rachel says, and grins for the first time all day. She turns to look over her shoulder and finds Cassie watching them intently.

"Your bodyguard looks like she wants to kill me," Shelby says. Rachel laughs.

"She's mostly harmless. She's just protective. I can't make any promises when it comes to Santana though; she apparently has a bone to pick with you."

Shelby rolls her eyes. "I can handle Santana. It seems like she really loves you, though."

"Santana?" Rachel asks with alarm.

"Your girlfriend," Shelby replies pointedly.

"Oh," Rachel blushes. "Yeah, she does."

Shelby nods. "Okay, I have to get back to the sitter." She stands up and walks around to Rachel. "I'm going to hug you now, okay?" Rachel giggles and leans into Shelby's embrace, gripping onto the back of her coat and inhaling the scent of her perfume. They pull away and Shelby holds her at arm's length. "Call me when you get settled in New York again." Rachel nods and Shelby squeezes her shoulders. "Goodbye, Rachel."

"Bye Shelby."

xx

Rachel's dads drive them to the airport. They exchange some tearful goodbyes, and Leroy gives Cassie a tight hug.

"Take care of our girl," he says firmly. Cassie smirks and looks down at Rachel.

"She takes care of herself. But I'll look after her," she promises.

Leroy nods appreciatively, and then they make their way through security. Rachel actually lets Cassie drink this time, if only because the bruise Cassie left on her thigh from the last flight has only just faded away. Cassie downs a couple of Bloody Marys and ends up falling asleep just after takeoff. She only wakes up after they land and Rachel rouses her from slumber with a kiss.

It takes them a little while to muscle through the crowds and get their luggage, but once they do and finally emerge outside, Rachel inhales the cold New York air deeply. Yeah, she misses her family and her friends, but she's finally home again. She's got a new semester at NYADA to look forward to, and plenty of auditions lined up. She and Quinn have already set up a date for Rachel to go visit her at Yale, and Brittany and Santana have promised to visit when they get a chance. They have plans to go to Callbacks tomorrow night with Kurt and Brody. She has a real chance at having a relationship with Shelby after all this time.

Best of all, she has Cassie by her side to love and motivate her, to push and exasperate her, and to remind her that she can be strong all on her own. It's not going to be easy or perfect. New York is nothing like she imagined it would be in all of her fantasies as a child. It's way better.


End file.
